14 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Colson Whitehead

The The Underground Railroad author’s first book was rejected 25 times.

Kate Bubacz / BuzzFeed News

Colson Whitehead came to BuzzFeed New York on Thursday where he was interviewed by Shani Hilton as part of the company’s new Breakfast at BuzzFeed speaker series. Here are some interesting facts we learned about the The Underground Railroad author during their conversation:

Kate Bubacz / BuzzFeed News

Being a journalist taught him how to write — his first job out of college was writing for the books section in The Village Voice.

He loved the people who worked there, who he thought were “cultural gurus, interdisciplinary samurais tackling culture.”